Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He was murdered not by a Palestinian terrorist, not by a member of an Arab terrorist organization, but by Yigal Amir, a right-wing fanatic and Orthodox Jew. Amir opposed Israel's participtaion in the Oslo accords. Along with his brother, Hagai Amir, and their friend Dror Adani, he plotted and carried out an assassination as Rabin left a rally supporting the peace process.

May Rabin, a Righteous Man, be remembered forever.

I recently attended a presentation by Amos Guiora, a professor of law at the University of Utah and a well-known and well-respected authority on counter-terrorism. Professor Guiora lists among his other accomplishments his activities as a "Research Fellow at the International Institute on Counter-Terrorism, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzeliya, Israel, a Corresponding Member, The Netherlands School of Human Rights Research, University of Utrecht School of Law and has been awarded a Senior Specialist Fulbright Fellowship for The Netherlands in 2008." He is the author of an amazing paper on the dangers of religous extremism to modern society, which can be found at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1427998#

In the article, Professor Guiora notes that religious extremism can be distinguished by the lack of respect for secular authority. He offers that, as a short-term solution, governments must take extraordinary measures to suppress religous extremism and the terrorism that it begets. But, and this was a key point in his presentation, the mainstream members of the major religions must distance themselves, publicly and without equivocation, from the fanatics that menace our society. Amir's action contradict the spirit and the letter of the Torah, the Talmud and modern Judaism. Rabbis, priests, imams, et cetera must publicly denounce the murderers and suicide bombers. Oherwise, they will continue their terrorism.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel, often spoke against Rabin at rallies organized by the Likud party, where Rabin was portrayed in a Nazi uniform or shown in the cross-hairs of a gun. You need to know that Rabin was a member of the Israeli Palmach in the years before independence. He fough in the same mission wher Moshe Dayan lost his eye. Rabin served in the IDF. As Prime Minister, he was responsible for the airlift at Entebbe. This was not a man that deserved to be demonized by his opponents. By speaking at these rallies, Netanyahu lent credence to the fanatics. As far as I am concerned, he has the blood of an innocent on his hands.

“There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.”

in 1995, before stepping up to condemn rabin in a speech delivered to thousands of angry demonstrators in zion square--some of whom carried posters of rabin in nazi regalia--chanting "death to rabin", netanyahu was reportedly cautioned by then housing minister ben-eliezer against further inflaming the mob:

"You'd better restrain your people. Otherwise it will end in murder. They tried to kill me just now... Your people are mad. If someone is murdered, the blood will be on your hands... The settlers have gone crazy, and someone will be murdered here, if not today, then in another week or another month!"

in an interview for israeli army radio just before his assassination, rabin himself said:

"It's enough to hear some of the MKs' speeches at the Knesset and their public statements to understand that the Likud cannot shirk responsibility for creating the background to this unprecedented verbal violence. Rallies attended by Likud members are led by extremists.".

asked whether he felt he was at risk unless he caved to likud's leaders (not only netanyahu but also sharon and ohlmert), rabin said:

"The general atmosphere of verbal violence later leads to physical violence. These things shouldn't lead to silence nor escape. No one will silence me."

In 1995, Housing Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezertold Netanyahu “You’d better restrain your people. Otherwise it will end in murder. They tried to kill me just now.… Your people are mad. If someone is murdered, the blood will be on your hands.… The settlers have gone crazy, and someone will be murdered here, if not today, then in another week or another month!”

The circumstances were that Netanyahu was about to address a rally that depicted Prime Minister Rabin wearing the uniform of a Nazi SS trooper; others at the rally carried signs calling Rabin "Arafat's dog"; the crowd chanted "“Death to Rabin! Nazis! Judenrat!” The word Judenrat refers to the Jewish councils formed by the Nazis to accelerate the transfer of Jews to the concentration camps.

Netanyahu ignored the warning and addressed the crowd anyway. He was introduced as "the next Prime Minister."

In a letter written a decade ago, she referred to Netanyahu as "a nightmare."

If you believe that a Muslim leader who speaks at a rally that is advised will lead to violence shares responsibility for the violent outcome of that rally, then the same principle should be applied to Netanyahu.

while this specific instance involves the tragic murder of an israeli by three other israelis whose hatred and fanaticism were fueled by still other israelis determined to further their own political agenda by any means, it's a universal problem that certainly does exist.

have you not seen obama portrayed in full nazi regalia on this site? did you somehow miss reports of armed men showing up in the crowds when he speaks?

you've totally missed the forest for the trees.

Ok, I'll bite. How many of JU's Jews and Zionists had anything to do with that?

I do not deny that this particular problem exists in a universal sense. But I am saying that it doesn't exist to any relevant length among Jews and Zionists.

A large majority of Jews, including Zionists, voted for Obama. We (Jews and Zionists) are NOT among the people you are talking about.

Netanyahu ignored the warning and addressed the crowd anyway. He was introduced as "the next Prime Minister."

And guess what, the old Nazi Arafat indeed turned out to be untrustworthy.

Rabin, although his intentions were good, made a mistake.

That's not why he was murdered, of course. His murderer wanted him dead because he supported peace, not because he dealt with the wrong people on the other side.

If you believe that a Muslim leader who speaks at a rally that is advised will lead to violence shares responsibility for the violent outcome of that rally, then the same principle should be applied to Netanyahu.

Did Netanyahu CALL for violence or did he simply share the opinions of the violent people?

I don't mind if an Arab or Muslim leader speaks at a rally and AGREES that all Jewish holy sites should be under Muslim rule. In fact, the most "moderate" Arab leaders do that all the time (a Jewish leader calling for the Jewish sites to be under Jewish rule is a dangerous extremist because he is Jewish).

But when they call for VIOLENCE, it's different.

I don't think Netanyahu called for violence against Rabin. Bibi simply disagreed with Rabin. He was a bit smarter than the rest. By now everybody knows that Rabin was wrong and that the old Nazi Arafat and the PLO could not be trusted.

I mean, look at what those terrorists did to the territories the world handed over to them! Who on earth gave Israel and the world community the right to impose the rule of a terrorist organisation over the Arab population of Gaza and the West-Bank?

She says that the people are afraid of their leadership (currently the PLO in the West-Bank):

In secretmany Palestinians from East-Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories in Judaea and Samaria speak positively about Israel, but they avoid this in public. "The Palestinian people is afraid of its own leadership, but not of Israel. More and more Palestinians want Israeli military rule back in the occupied territories."

That's the leadership Rabin's peace treaty imposed on them. It was a mistake.

Luckily Abbas is now threatening to dissolve the Palestinian Authority, so maybe we can go back to military rule until we find a better solution, preferably one that doesn't recognise some terrorist group as the legitimate representation of anyone.

If it were up to me (and not the world community) Bibi and Lieberman should simply work things out with the Arab clan leaders, totally bypassing the terrorist leaders and the Arab governments and certainly the UN.

In my experience traditional Arab clan leaders are a lot more reasonable and trustworthy than secular or Islamic Arab leaders and certainly more trustworthy than the UN.